Chow said Tuesday that, if elected, she will make a request to open Toronto municipal campaigns in early July rather than early January.

She noted that Toronto’s campaign has already run 159 days — longer than five consecutive provincial elections — but still has 140 days to go. The mayoral candidates debated more than 100 times in 2010.

“Having almost a full year of campaigning doesn’t benefit our city. We elect federal governments in 36 days and provincial ones in 28. It shouldn’t take 299 days to choose a mayor,” Chow said in a news release.

“If I’m the new mayor, I would take it to council and ask for support,” Chow told reporters at city hall. “I hope other council members would support this proposal.”

Doug Ford stood beside her in a media scrum to support her idea.

“This is going to be probably the one and only time you’re going to hear Olivia Chow and I agree on anything,” Ford said, adding that a nine or 10 month campaign is exhausting.

“I don’t think it takes the people of Toronto that long to figure out who they’re voting for,” he said. “I’m not speaking for Rob right now but I feel we should shorten the election very similar to what Olivia just said.”

“I think it’s a bit of a solution in search of a problem,” Tory said. “I don’t have large numbers of Torontonians coming up and complaining about the length of the election.”

Short campaigns are a bad idea, said Stintz, who believes high-profile candidates like Chow, as well as incumbents, would benefit.

“A shorter campaign favours candidates like Ms. Chow, who are supported by a major political party and money from special interests,” Stintz said in a statement.

“A shorter campaign also favours well-funded incumbents to the exclusion of lesser-known candidates who bring fresh ideas and perspectives, but need more time to establish themselves in a campaign.”

Chow rejected the charge that a short campaign benefits some candidates while hurting others, saying four months is still much longer than provincial or federal contests.

“I don’t think it would give incumbents an advantage because four months is a long, long time,” she said. “Hopefully, the provincial government is listening and we can start the election after July 1.”

Council would likely have to endorse Chow’s proposal for the province to take it seriously. The current group of councillors took no action on a 2013 motion from Councillor Michelle Berardinetti to ask the province begin the mayoral campaign in May and council campaigns in June.

Attempting to capitalize on anti-politician sentiment, Rob Ford promised in 2010 to cut the size of council in half. Chow makes her own pitch for less politics as voters are inundated with simultaneous appeals from provincial and municipal candidates. There is also a federal byelection in Trinity-Spadina, the riding she vacated to run for mayor.

Toronto’s mayoral election is the closest thing Canada has to a U.S. presidential election. By comparison, the first significant votes of the 2016 presidential nomination calendar, the Iowa caucuses, will be held about nine-and-a-half months before election day.

Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly said a long campaign period is needed for municipal candidates to raise money, since they, unlike federal and provincial parties, can only take donations during the formal campaign. He also said candidates would conduct long de facto campaigns even if they were formally limited to four months.

Incumbent Ford, who registered to run at the first moment possible in January, openly declared that he started campaigning much earlier. Chow, who registered in March, kept herself in the public eye with a pre-campaign memoir and book tour.

“I think the gains would be minimal, if any,” Kelly said of Chow’s proposal at an unrelated news conference on Tuesday.

Advocates of long campaigns argue that short campaigns benefit incumbents and other well-known figures, who do not need as much time to introduce themselves to voters. The current election features three prominent figures, Chow, Ford and John Tory, and two relative unknowns, councillor Karen Stintz and former councillor David Soknacki.

“The reality is that a municipal election is unlike any other level of government; people aren’t voting for a party they are voting for a person,” said Soknacki spokeswoman Supriya Dwivedi. “More time in getting to know that person’s platform, policies and personality aren’t a bad thing, in fact we believe it to be just the opposite. A shorter election would undoubtedly favour frontrunner, establishment candidates.”

Chow spokesman Jamey Heath countered that longer campaigns are more expensive to run. Because unknown candidates have to register early to boost their profile, Heath said, they often burn through their cash by the summer, well before voting day in late October; an unknown challenger may have a better chance “if she only has a four-month window to make an impression.”

“I’d suggest it’s not as clear-cut as shorter-is-better for incumbents,” Heath said.

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